


the end is nightly

by cellardweller



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Pre & Post Recall, also they're married, this is how about neither of them get enough sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 08:30:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14445360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cellardweller/pseuds/cellardweller
Summary: Strike Commander Jack Morrison and Blackwatch Commander Gabriel Reyes don't get nearly enough sleep.The same goes for Soldier: 76 and Reaper.





	the end is nightly

**Author's Note:**

> this is unbeta'd so who knows what's going on in here
> 
> please enjoy

If he closes his eyes he can pretend the ringing in his ears is music, or the roar of the wind against the windows of his office. Bundled up under his head is the blue coat, cushioning his face against the hardwood desk. Three times he’s tried already to close the blinds against the harsh sunrise light and three times Athena has silently opened them back up, spitting in the face of his desire to be completely obscured in the dark where he can shirk the morning’s work in private. He wishes she was more amenable to his misery.  
  
There’s a knock at his door that he tries to ignore completely, insistent for half a minute before it stops.   
  
Then, the sound of the lock disengaging and the soft creak of his door opening. Jack doesn’t bother to lift his head – there’s only one other person who has the clearance and the permission to enter his personal quarters unannounced. And that person – he looks at his watch, resting on the arm conveniently an inch away from his face – isn’t due back from Newfoundland until tomorrow morning.   
  
He knows it’s Gabe crossing the room with a few heavy steps, forgoing any light or fanfare, to stop next to him and sigh. He would know him blind, or asleep, by the way the world shakes when he moves. Jack hears the creak as he crouches down, his hand runs through his hair and pauses just above his neck.   
  
“Jack.” It’s quiet. “Wake the fuck up,” Gabe says gently.  
  
When Jack opens his eyes he glares at a handsome face. Gabe’s staring at him trying not to grin, as though he hadn’t caught the Strike Commander napping on the job. Usually Gabe would dig at him a little more, but this time-  
  
“You know I’ve requested Athena tell me when you haven’t been eating or sleeping.”   
  
“You too,” Jack mumbles into his coat. Sometimes Gabe doesn’t sleep, sometimes Jack doesn’t eat. Sometimes one of them does neither. Luck has them on this one. At least they’re not usually able to easily perpetuate each others bad habits.   
  
“Yeah, well,” Gabe starts as he pulls away and stands up. Jack watches him remove his own heavy jacket and dump it on a chair by his bedroom door. “I had four very fulfilling hours of dreamless sleep before we touched down. Can’t say the same for you, Jackie.”   
  
“So you woke me up?”   
  
Gabe grabs him by the bicep and gently tugs him up from his chair, pulling his arm around his shoulders. Jack goes willingly only because he’s too exhausted to try and resist on principle. “You’re going to get some rest, and you’re going to do it in your bed where it might actually do you some good.”   
  
He nudges open the door to Jack’s bedroom with his foot and walks them over to the bed. As soon as Jack’s ass hits the quilt he slouches over, rubbing the space between his eyes. “What about you?” He asks as Gabe kneels down to untie Jack’s boot.   
  
“What about me?” Gabe says. He’s gingerly removed the boot and now massages his hands down his calf. “I’m going to be right here with you.”   
  
Jack falls onto his back. “It’s six in the morning, Gabe,” he says. “We both can’t just be missing the whole day.”   
  
“I took care of it,” Gabe murmurs into the side of his knee. “Snooped in your itinerary, Jack, you have no meetings today. Ana will handle everything else. Told Athena we’re both taking a wellness day.”   
  
“I can’t, I’m the Strike Commander,” Jack whines, running his hands down his face. He feels the other boot slip off quickly and a great weight settles on top of him.   
  
There’s a familiar chuckle in his ear. “Yeah, and that means you can absolutely do this if you want,” Gabe sighs. He pushes himself up and off of Jack, unbuttoning his shirt. “Better take advantage of it now before the world comes calling again. Or I have to go fuck off to some-” he gestures ambiguously “-place with no reception.”   
  
Jack slowly strips until he’s in his boxers and crawls under the covers. Gabe has a point he would die rather than ever admit and that point has mostly to do with the fact that he won’t be of much use to anyone if he drops dead in his office. Unfortunately.   
  
“I was really looking forward to finally giving up the ghost,” Jack says, his voice a mumble halfway into the pillow. He has his gaze trained on the boyfriend, who’s got a few new bandages on under all his clothes. A few are lightly bloodied, rigid with stitches underneath. Must have been bad, if the accelerated healing they worked so hard for couldn’t take care of it. “What happened in Newfoundland?”  
  
“Nothin’,” Gabe says quickly. He sighs and looks over, meeting Jack’s eyes as he pulls the rest of his clothes off. “Nothing for you to worry about,” he amends, voice strained. “No chance of blowback, no lost assets.”   
  
“I mean-” Jack gestures vaguely to the mosaic of treatment done along Gabe’s chest as he undresses and reveals another mass of bandages snaking along down one leg. “Hey,” he says seriously, propping himself up on his elbows.  
  
Finally catching his eye, Gabe grimaces at the glare he’s suffering. “Okay, I may have caught the brunt of a grenade blast.”  
  
Jack doesn’t say anything, doesn’t want to be needlessly lofty. Can’t help the bristling anxiety he feels, but he tries not to act on the bitter resentment that bubbles up when Gabe comes back from a mission taunting his worst fears. So, he presses his mouth into a thin line and nods.  
  
After Gabe flops down onto his side of the bed, he chuckles. “That’s the second time I’ve ever seen you speechless.”  
  
“Gabe,” Jack prompts quietly, conversationally. Sleep drags at his eyes but he won’t relax unless he gets some form of debrief. He can see Gabe in the dim light of the bedroom, at his own deep dark gulfs settling under bloodshot eyes.  
  
“Ah,” he rubs the back of his head nervously. “All I’m going to get is a new scar on my ass. Don’t worry about it, Jackie.”  
  
“Ah,” Jack says in kind. He turns away but moves back, settling into the curve of the body behind him as Gabe gets the idea, wrapping his arms around his chest in a confined embrace.  
  
They both became more tactile during their time in SEP, when human contact was about the only salve to some of their misery. Gabe especially takes comfort in the tightness of his armor, the tourniquet that holds him together. Or so he says. Jack treasures his heavy coat, the visor, the pieces that tie all of his loose ends into one. They both have their bindings.  
  
Words, too. They’re both very aware of the fact that despite all that can go unsaid between them, spoken confirmation is a precious thing as well. Jack is worse at this.  
  
“It’s gonna take more firepower than that to blow me up,” Gabe mumbles from where his mouth is pressed against his neck. “I’m gonna be right here when you wake up.” He has a hold of all his aching bones, running circles with his fingers until they drift off to sleep.  
  
*  
  
Jack wakes up at some point in the day and the first thing he notices is they somehow ended up in opposite positions, but loosely. Gabe is sprawled out and dead to the world, peacefully sleeping away his working day with an arm thrown over his eyes. Jack supposes he’s earned it, what with the man usually forgoing any sort of rest and recovery to do more, more, more. He’s halfway onto his chest, laying with their legs flush against each other, and Jack’s hand subconsciously resting over one of the mass of bandages on Gabe’s stomach.  
  
Athena had the good grace to darken the windows as they slept, and the clock on the bedside reads just after 1500.  
  
The headquarters is still standing, his communicator is quiet, as is Athena, so there isn’t much in their world that inspires in Jack a need to wake Gabe right now. Longer still, and they could sleep away the day and spend the night catching up, maybe go back to some semblance of a normal sleeping schedule.  
  
Jack takes the hand on Gabe’s stomach and presses it against the deep wound at his hip, then at the places along his leg where there might be new scars, where at least he was whole and safe. A constant reminder of everything Jack worried about. He never wonders _if_ Gabe feels the same but he wonders if it torments him as much, all the little things they can’t control.  
  
He accidentally presses too hard or too long, and Gabe wakes with a grunt. He hums and pulls all of his limbs back into orbit, takes Jack’s hand in one and wraps the other around the back of his neck, pulling him close. Says nothing, but promptly goes back to sleep.  
  
Like always, Jack takes that bait and slips into the empty spaces between Gabe’s steady drowsing breaths and heavy heartbeat.  
  
*  
  
76 rolls onto his stomach, hand splayed between the hard ground and the hole in his suit, weeping blood. His healing slowed down in his forties already, after he took a more administrative role. Now, a decade after that and getting blown to shit, sluggish would be a compliment.  
  
The biotic canister topples off of his belt and drifts just out of reach, so he pushes up onto his knees and crawls. It’s funny, he thinks, just how fallible he is, when all their hubris right out of the program carried him for decades. Carried both of them.  
  
Reaper is nearby, that’s all 76 knows beyond the pain in his stomach. It’s a fleeting sensation of fear, muted and soothed by a lingering trust that won’t ever go away. As long as it’s Reaper behind the gun that shoots him, he won’t die. 76 has a tolerance for pain and he can play the long game.  
  
“What are you doing here?”  
  
There he is, voice like a hand clawing its way up out of the cold grave.  
  
A taloned gauntlet reaches down in his line of vision and snatches the canister from the ground where it lays an inch from 76’s outstretched hand. 76 sighs and sits back on his knees. He looks up at the mask, Reaper’s slouched, exhausted form cradling the canister with one hand. “I want my husband back, first of all,” 76 says. There’s an impressive amount of blood on his hands when he opens them up, trying for some form of supplication. Reaper’s mask tilts in interest, hums, and activates the canister with a flick of his fingers.  
  
He kneels down and places it in 76’s hands. They touch briefly and 76 wants to crawl out of his skin.  
  
When Reaper stands back up he’s speaking again, grating against the devastated nerves of 76’s heart. “I got a message,” he says. He wanders over to 76’s discarded pulse rifle and hefts it onto his belt. “You haven’t been eating,” he says, “or sleeping.”  
  
76 stares at him, bewildered, following step after aching step as Reaper comes back to him, just as exhausted. “At least you’ve been drinking, even if it is cheap whiskey,” Reaper continues, coming to crouch in front of him, mask tilted.  
  
There’s nothing in those deep black sockets but embers. Even past the stress and the trauma, 76 can recall shades of bronze. “Yeah, well, it was all I could find in those old Blackwatch safehouses.”  
  
Reaper makes a noise, like a _hmph._ “Blame Jesse for that.”  
  
The skin around the wound has mostly stitched itself up, though hearing Jesse’s name like that puts another hole in him. With some less-than-graceful grunts of effort, he slowly slides himself away from Reaper and puts his back against a wall. Reaper just watches him, unmoving like a statue, black wisps falling from his edges, of which there are many.  
  
“What are _you_ doing here?” 76 asks. He doesn’t look at Reaper anymore. He cradles the canister against his chest and lets his head fall back.  
  
“Because you were going to be here. We’re always going to orbit each other, even if you don’t like it.”  
  
“You’re friendlier this time, at least.”  
  
Considering this, Reaper turns his gaze to the ground. “No one knows we’re here. No one’s watching. I don’t have to put on the act.” He looks back up and reaches out a hand, imploring. “Let me help you, Jack.”  
  
Whatever God put them in this situation was a bastard.  
  
All that trust he still had in Gabe meant nothing if he couldn’t put it to use. There’s still a big part of him where that trust is eroded by the fear. He’s seen what Reaper is capable of and what he’s done, how much death and destruction he’s caused. What he knows _Gabe_ is capable of, magnified by the horror of everything over the last decade.  
  
And yet, as he stares at Reaper’s outstretched hand, talons and all, there’s an insistent voice telling him the foundation of their relationship is still intact, it’s still strong despite being burdened with so much, and Jack knows who he married.  
  
76 takes the hand, but as Reaper ducks down to wrap an arm around his waist and bring him to his feet, he reaches up and pulls off his own mask. It’s harder to see, but easier to breathe. He takes a few deep breaths and feels Reaper tense.  
  
“You look the same,” Reaper’s voice is quieter now, softer around the edges.  
  
When 76 looks up he stares into the depths of Reaper’s mask, now an inch away from his face. 76 swallows. “Wish I could say the same for you.”  
  
A laugh, cut short self-consciously. 76 feels his heart beat one strong thud at that sound before he looks back down at the ground. It doesn’t really matter where he looks at the moment, mask in hand and ensconced in Reaper’s arms. “You really don’t. Trust me,” Reaper says.  
  
He carefully moves them into an open space. “You _do_ still trust me, right?”  
  
76 flinches. Does he? It takes only a second’s deliberation before the word _yes_ is out of his mouth. Instinct rules.  
  
Reaper sweeps around him, one hand around his waist, the other cupped against the back of his head, pulling him close. 76 finds some loop in Reaper’s coat and threads a finger into it. The bone mask stares down at him again, black smoke wafting out of every imperfection.  
  
“We should have died back then,” he says, unprompted.  
  
“We should have died in the program,” Reaper says curiously. “Shit, I think you almost died the first time you saw me.”  
  
They stand like that for a while, like two dancers waiting for the music to begin and never quite noticing how much time has passed. The canister has run out and 76 lets it drop to the ground with a clatter, blood dripping past the fingers of the hand pressed to his wound.  
  
*  
  
When Reaper phases them back into physical form, he preemptively catches 76 as he stumbles. 76 doubles over gasping for breath. “So that’s what it’s like.”  
  
Reaper hums. He keeps a tight hold on 76 as he leads him to a bed in the corner of the room. “You need to rest, Jackie.”  
  
The nickname makes him physically weak, collapsing onto the bed as soon as he feels it hit his calves. He lets it go, doesn’t want to bring any attention to it lest he make it disappear. “What about you?” he says instead.  
  
“I don’t sleep,” Reaper says, stalking into some other part of the space.  
  
76 feels disappointed, of all things. He puts his mask back on for a moment, scopes the space and notices the fading yellow and white on the wall. _An old Overwatch hideout._ Reaper comes back into sight and gives him a look, gesturing to an object in his hand. “Found another biotic emitter.”  
  
Reaper doesn’t ask him, but he can tell by the way he lingers what’s on his mind, and he guesses with enough confidence to climb onto the cot still fully clothed with their weapons laying together on the space next to them. 76 won’t undress either, not even with the wound, not in an unsecured location. The presence of his husband is the only thing convincing him to try and sleep at all, instead of fleeing. Someday, if they’re lucky, that might change.  
  
Settling into the space between Reaper’s legs, 76 lies back to chest with a hand clamped over the wound, still bleeding but steadily healing. Reaper snakes his arms around and holds them over his stomach with the biotic canister glowing in his hands. It glows like the morning light and washes over him. Wound aside, he’s been on the run for days without rest and his whole body feels like a tower of sand. He puts a hand over the canister, smothering the light enough to let him sleep. Their fingers brush and barely entwine.  
  
“How much time do you have?” 76 asks.  
  
“Sunrise or so. That’s when they might come poking around.”  
  
76 has a thousand questions about what he’s doing with Talon, and why. None of them come to mouth. Maybe it’s best he doesn’t know. Part of him feels like he’s fulfilled a promise to the human race -- both of them have -- simply by holding up the world for as long as they did, and now he can be granted the peace of ignorance and a night of miserable luxury with the only man he ever loved enough to admit it out loud.  
  
He never even asked who sent the message, or if he was just that predictable.  
  
“I’m going to be right here until then.”  
  
Sometimes it’s enough to survive, he supposes. Reaper, with his mysterious loyalties and shattered pieces of a good man rattling around in a familiar husk, still there but different.  
  
76 will wake up, somehow hungover, impossibly tired, but shoulder the last bit of insurance he wrenched from the ruin of Overwatch and load a clip into it.  
  
“I’ll be here when you wake up.”  
  
The rumble of Reaper’s voice against his back tempts him to the edge of sleep, his head tilted into the space of his neck. There’s something to be said for vulnerability, when all you’ve known for years is hair-trigger discipline and self-preservation.  
  
There’s something he wants to say, but he can’t form his tongue around the words. Maybe next time they have a showdown he’ll spit it like a curse, just enough venom to shake Reaper, so he can pin him down and wrench that mask off his face.  
  
Just then, Reaper brings up a clawed hand and lightly traces it down his chest, from neck to waist. That does it, finally calms his mind enough for him to let go and fall asleep above the buzzing comfort of Reaper’s distracted humming.  
  
*  
  
76 wakes up alone.  
  
He runs a hand down his face, replaces his mask, and pulls the pulse rifle into his lap. In the early-morning silence of the abandoned bunker, he traces lines along the weapon before slamming ammo into it.  
  
The uniform is dirty, blood-caked and so worn he can feel a rash developing. With the night’s rest he got he could travel for a while, get someplace safe, pull himself together.  
  
He collects his things and wanders down the hall, looking for signs that Reaper was ever here at all, but like a ghost he’s come and gone. Stepping out into the morning light feels like a punishment.  
  
There’s no real bitterness here - he left it in that bed. All he has are the phantoms of answers he should have demanded to receive. Some little bit of affection from the overflowing wellspring of his battered heart he keeps locked behind so many layers of dissociation he wonders how he’s able to recognize it at all. But there it is - their time so easily wasted.  
  
_Next time,_ he thinks. _Next time._

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> if you want to scream @ me about overwatch or related bullshit I am missmonomyth both on tumblr and twitter god bless
> 
> also: the first time gabe saw him speechless was when they met, bye


End file.
